Eye Wall
cast glass
2005
Artist Brian Russell
A graduate of Rhodes College, Brian Russell is a native Memphian with numerous private and corporate commissions to his credit. He has been featured in exhibitions nationwide since the early 1980's. Of this piece he writes "I began making the model for Eye Wall as Hurricane Katrina wreaked its havoc on the Gulf Coast, inspired by the satellite images of the monster cyclone. Two days later I poured the glass into the mold created from the model. Late that night the remnants of the storm swept through the mid-south, knocking out the electricity that runs the kilns. The horizontal rain flooded my generator. Since the glass was in the critical annealing stage I knew that it would be cracked if I demolded it, so I decided to reheat the glass after the power was restored. This was actually the first time I had tried this. All of the glass was originally reds and yellows.-the blackened glass resulted from some chemical occurrence as a result of not reaching a high enough temperature to completely remelt the glass."
